When I was four years old, my parents had a Time-Life book about World War II, which sat on the coffee table in the living room. The living room was off limits to children, unless there was company. Occasionally, I would sneak in to look at that book full of awful pictures, graphically depicting man’s inhumanity to man. I now know that Hilter was a person who behaved very badly. I didn’t understand that then. I did recognize pictures of dead people being bulldozed into open graves and thousands of soldiers lying dead in the fields of Europe. One day the feelings simply overwhelmed me and I sat in tears on the floor. I wanted it (war; anything that would cause this damage) stopped that instant. The book disappeared. I never forgot about war. When I began this work, twenty-nine years ago, it was because I wanted to bring an end to violence in our world. I didn’t want to work on it, try to end it or struggle with it, all of which I have done.
As is all too evident from the conditions of this planet, I have not been successful in ending either war or violence. What I have come to know is that war and violence will only be ended by well people telling the truth and deciding that enough is enough. What do I mean by well people? People who see themselves as responsible for their own well-being. People who are engaged in the process of solutions to the challenges that exist in life. Well people do not damage others. They may disagree and they are able to separate people from their behavior. The time has come for each of us to speak what we know from our experience, not theory.
The administrative team at one of our school system clients reads books collectively that are intended to contribute to insight into the improvement of the teaching/learning process. Some books are selected because they are written by people who are leaders in the field of education. The Art and Science of Teaching by Robert Marzano, an acknowledged expert, is this month’s selection. The fifth chapter heading is, “What Will I Do To Engage Students?” In my opinion, this question demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the teaching/learning process. As a teacher, I am responsible for being inspired, 200% prepared, creative, etc. I cannot engage students; students must choose to engage in inspired or uninspired classrooms. Each person is responsible for whether their lives turn out, regardless of the circumstances. Who am I to say that Marazano’s work is not grounded? It is my experience that even though these phrases are part of our national culture, each time we speak or act as if we can motivate, inspire, empower or engage anyone in anything we take power and ownership away from those we intend to reach.
One person I know who does write from his experience is Michael Neill. Michael and I have worked together for almost six years, first as a participant in the phases of, “What One Person Can Do,” and now as a facilitator for that process. Michael refers a great many people to our work. He does this through his live talk-radio program on Hay House Radio and through his mention of our work from time to time in weekly tips. To the degree that Michael has been influenced by our work together, I am thrilled. There are very few people working in the area of human potential (more accurately capacity) who are willing to admit honestly to their own difficult times. Michael and Byron Katie are two of the best. The candor of the story and the description of the path are a great part of the overall impact of Michael’s new book, Feel Happy Now.
Recently, I gave a copy of Feel Happy Now to a young woman with whom I am working, who is in her early twenties. She is making huge progress toward mastering the circumstances in her life and will eventually make an enormous contribution to the world (ending violence, war, hunger and starvation) regardless of what she chooses to do. Her reaction to the book was that there was a great deal of it that was grounded in the work that she and I have done together. I could not have been more thrilled. This work explained through Michael’s experience, or anyone’s direct experience is more powerful. I only write about books I have read and believe will be of use to you, our readers. Feel Happy Now is no different, except for the fact that I believe you and I have a vested interest in its success.
I mean you, the reader, and I, not Michael, have a vested interest in its success. Michael is going to continue to be a very successful coach without our support, mention in this newsletter or our purchase of his book. This book, however, represents an opportunity to open conversations with people about wellness, the power of loving kindness and choice. It more clearly captures what I strive to communicate in person better than any other book I know. I am asking you to buy a copy of Feel Happy Now! Read it. See if it resonates with you. Give it to people. Give it to those you love. To those who are struggling. To those who have suffered. Give it to those who can and want to be more. Notice that I am not just asking you to look at it or read it; I am asking you (if this book strikes you) to buy the book. In my experience it is the opening of a door. Perhaps my motivation is purely selfish, perhaps not.
Its Appendix, as noted below, is indicative of the tone of the entire book.
Appendix – To Be Opened in Case of Emergency
“There is chaos under the heavens and the situation is excellent.”
– Chinese Proverb
While it would be nice to believe that having read this book would be enough to inoculate you against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, I live in the real word – a world where nothing lasts, no-one gets out alive and bad things happen to good people. (In fairness, they happen to ‘bad’ people too in roughly the same proportion, a fact that seems to elude most observers).
This impartial ‘karma’ isn’t noticed because from a very early age, we are taught to take things personally – that not only do we have the power to make the people around us happy, they have the power to make us very unhappy indeed.
But what happens when we stop taking things personally? When we let go of the story that God or the universe or the wheel of karma has singled us out to be flung up to the heights or down to the depths as punishment or reward for what we did or didn’t do in this life or the last?
I remember finding great meaning in the words of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, describing the long march in the dead of winter through the death camps of Auschwitz:
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth–that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way–an honourable way–in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfilment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”
When I first read that, I figured that if people could find moments of happiness in a concentration camp, then I could probably find a few in the midst of paradise.
